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19th Hole

Rory: “I’d love to ask why…coverage of golf is so negative”

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While speaking with Kyle Porter in his newsletter, Normal Sport, Rory McIlroy criticized the golf media (Porter excluded).

“So I would say the one thing that I … and this isn’t you.

“There’s certain people in the game that I would say … how can I put this?

“We’re all in this together, right? We’re all in the game of golf together, and we all want to push forward.

“And I always wonder why some people in the media ask questions that have a negative connotation toward golf, or make golf look bad or put it in a bad light.

“I get it. I get that it’s human nature and negativity sells. And that’s why CNN is the way it is, and why Fox News is the way it is an all that stuff.

“But if we’re all in this together and we all know that we can benefit by raising the game up, some people in the media I’d love to ask why their coverage of golf is so negative.”

Rory did admit that there were certainly some negative aspects of the professional game that are at the forefront right now, including the declining television ratings.

“I think it’s more to do with the coverage of … I guess it’s true, but viewership is declining, and this is bad, and that’s bad, and they hate the fans, and they hate this.

“I understand where they’re coming from, but surely it’s in everyone’s best interest to focus on the positives of the game where recreational golf has never been better, there’s more opportunities to play the game.

“Just stuff like that. Sometimes I wonder what their incentive is to be so negative at times.”

McIlroy clarified that he didn’t mean that media should not be critical of players after a poor performance, but instead that they should lighten up on the overall state of the game.

“For the overall game, I’m not talking about … if someone messes up and you have to be critical of someone, absolutely. I think that is part of it.

“I think I, more than anyone, I understand that and I know that.

“I’m not saying being critical of players. I’m saying being critical of the overall game of golf.”

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9 Comments

9 Comments

  1. Chris

    Oct 14, 2024 at 7:42 pm

    Does Rory ever shut up?

  2. Rorsuxks

    Oct 10, 2024 at 1:11 am

    Rory. Just zip it. You are the majority of the problem.

  3. WSinTX

    Oct 9, 2024 at 12:47 pm

    Because the PGA Tour product is shit and the leadership is even worse. That’s why Rory. Don’t be in denial about it.

  4. MT

    Oct 9, 2024 at 11:59 am

    YOU Rory have helped with this. You made it fashionable to hate LIV, YOU made it Fashionable to hate LIV players. YOU are negative about Norman every single time you could be. I was a big golfer and YOU and people just like that made we walk away from watching golf because I just wasn’t interested in the forced drama. Ask yourself why. With all due respect you have to look in the mirror. Now the golf media feels like negativity sells. Gentleman qualities in golf left and now this is what you have. Your dislike and comments of LIV opened the door, now you cant put that back in the box. And THAT..is why viewership and the good feelings that were associate with Golf for many are gone!

  5. Livininparadise

    Oct 9, 2024 at 11:37 am

    Well, hammering the living heck out of LIV and calling it bush league and not giving world ranking points is bad for both tours and it is showing. So the pgat doesn’t have all of its stars and the LIV stars are traitors. That narrative killed both. And Rory, who was played like a fiddle by the pgat, is wondering why all of the negativity he spewed, along with others, has made thr reporting so negative? Geeze, I wonder why

  6. GMatt

    Oct 9, 2024 at 11:30 am

    Says the whiny lil biatch

  7. Ned

    Oct 9, 2024 at 5:52 am

    My opinion golf on tv has become boring. How about more team events and PGA LPGA partner events. Bring back the skins event.

  8. geohogan

    Oct 8, 2024 at 9:12 pm

    As a high achieving golfer, I would have expected Rory to have a better understanding of the mind.
    Thoughts add and multiply in the mind. There is no subtraction or division.
    Any attempt to stop negative thoughts only makes the thought multiply and the harder we try, the more it multiplies.

    If we hook, as Rory is known to do; simply trying to stop hooking only makes it worse.

    • Brandon

      Oct 8, 2024 at 10:25 pm

      So I should try to yip my chips? I’ve been fighting it for like 3 years.

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19th Hole

‘Don’t think I’ll sleep well tonight’ – LPGA pro offers candid take following rough AIG Women’s Open finish

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An opening round of 77 left LPGA pro Jenny Shin with a mountain to climb at last week’s AIG Women’s Open.

However, fighting back with rounds of 69 and 67, Shin found herself six shots off the lead and just outside the top 10 heading into Sunday as she went in search of her first major victory.

Shin, who won the US Girls’ Junior at just 13, couldn’t back those rounds up on Sunday, though, and after playing her opening nine holes of the final round in level par, she then bogeyed three holes coming home to slip down the leaderboard and eventually finish T23.

Taking to X following the final round, Shin offered a frustrated and honest take on how she was feeling, posting: “Don’t think I’ll sleep well tonight. What a crappy way to finish.”

Shin has made 11 cuts in 13 starts on the LPGA Tour this season, but has been plagued by frustrating Sunday finishes throughout the year. Shin ranks 102nd on tour this year out of 155 for Round 4 scoring in 2025.

Miyu Yamashita won the 2025 AIG Women’s Open with a composed final round of 70 to win her first major of her career by two strokes.

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19th Hole

How a late golf ball change helped Cameron Young win for first time on PGA Tour

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Cameron Young won the Wyndham Championship on Sunday for his first victory on the PGA Tour.

Young dominated all weekend at TPC Sedgefield, running away from the pack to win by six strokes and put himself in contention for a Ryder Cup pick in September.

Ahead of the event, the 28-year-old switched to a Pro V1x prototype golf ball for the first time, following recent testing sessions with the Titleist Golf Ball R&D team.

Interestingly, Young played a practice round accompanied by Fordie Pitts, Titleist’s Director of Tour Research & Validation, at TPC Schedule early last week with both his usual Pro V1 Left Dot ball and the new Pro V1x prototype.

Per Titleist, by the second hole Young was exclusively hitting shots with the Pro V1x prototype.

“We weren’t sure if he was going to test it this week, but as he was warming up, he asked to hit a couple on the range,” Pitts said. “He was then curious to see some shots out on the course.  Performance-wise, he was hitting tight draws everywhere. His misses were staying more in play. He hit some, what he would call ‘11 o’clock shots,’ where again he’s taking a little something off it. He had great control there.”

According to Titleist, the main validation came on Tuesday on the seventh hole of his practice round. The par 3 that played between 184 and 225 yards during the tournament called for a 5-iron from Young, or so he thought. Believing there was “no way” he could get a 6-iron to the flag with his Left Dot, Young struck a 5-iron with the Pro V1x prototype and was stunned to see the ball land right by the hole.

“He then hits this 6-iron [with the Pro V1x prototype] absolutely dead at the flag, and it lands right next to the pin, ending up just past it,” Pitts said. “And his response was, ‘remarkable.’ He couldn’t believe that he got that club there.”

Following nine holes on Tuesday and a further nine on Wednesday, Young asked the Titleist team to put the ProV1x balls in his locker. The rest, as they say, is history.

Check out Young’s winning WITB here.

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19th Hole

Rickie Fowler makes equipment change to ‘something that’s a little easier on the body’

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Rickie Fowler fired an opening round of one-under par on Thursday at the Wyndham Championship, as the Californian looks to make a FedEx Cup playoff push.

Fowler is currently 61st in the standings, so will need a strong couple of weeks to extend his season until the BMW Championship, where only the top 50 in the standings will tee it up.

Heading into the final stretch of the season, Fowler has made an equipment switch of note, changing into new iron shafts, as well as making a switch to his driver shaft.

The 36-year-old revealed this week that he has switched from his usual KBS Tour C-Taper 125-gram steel shafts to the graphite Aerotech SteelFiber 125cw shafts in his Cobra King Tour irons, a change he first put into play at last month’s Travelers Championship.

Speaking on the change to reporters this week, Fowler made note that the graphite shafts offer “something that’s a little easier on the body.”

“I mean, went to the week of Travelers, so been in for, I guess that’s a little over a month now. Something that’s a little easier on the body and seemed to get very similar numbers to where I was at. Yeah, it’s gone well so far.”

Fowler has also made a driver shaft change, switching out his Mitsubishi Diamana WB 73 TX for a UST Mamiya Lin-Q Proto V1 6 TX driver shaft in his Cobra DS-Adapt X, which he first implemented a couple of weeks ago at the John Deere Classic.

However, according to Fowler himself, the testing and potential changes are not done yet.

“Probably do some more testing in some different weight configurations with them once I get some time. Yeah, I feel like we’re always trying to search, one, to get better but are there ways to make things easier, whether that’s physically, mentally, whatever it may be. So yeah, I thought they were good enough to obviously put into play and looking forward to doing some more testing.”

Fowler gets his second round at TPC Sedgefield underway at 7.23 a.m ET on Friday.

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